Sauron doesn't have it easy either
by feanen
Summary: AU where Mordor is a bureaucracy ridden organisation which among others complicates Sauron's efforts to get rid of a desk with a truely horrifying design flaw. Just because his secretary selfishly left on holiday.


Sauron just about managed to have the orc at the reception stamp his employee card before his tardiness would have reached unacceptable levels.

Sauron waved hello to his secretary Grshznak who was engrossed in the latest test report from the Ministry for Inventions entitled 'The usefulness of Elven weapons as light sources as opposed to torches, taking the possible harmfulness of blue light into account'.

Since Sauron had come in just before lunch time, he felt justified to take his lunch break. He was really excited to read the newest edition of a book series he had subscribed to recently, called 'Caught up in the throes of passion' which he quite enjoyed.

When he had just gotten 20 pages in, he was interrupted by Grshznak.

"What do you mean, I'm leaving now?" an irritated Sauron asked. Grshznak put down his suitcase and sighed.

„I already told you last week that I will take my holiday allotment starting today, because it would otherwise become void."

"Damn it!" mumbled Sauron. He had planned to tell his secretary two seconds before it becoming void that he still had 10 months of holiday. But no, some idiot in the central personnel administration office had to destroy Sauron's plans and send Grshznak a memo.

Frankly, this showed how badly the system was organised – reports on degradations of army generals needed an average of 80 years to be sent from the central personnel administration office, section A6546464b (personnel management for staff abroad), via the administration office for government employees to the section for personnel of the ministry of war. Then it took even more time until the message vas sent via internal mail to the concerned outpost. Then it took even more time for the message to reach its intended recipient. But if you wanted to avoid letting your secretary know he still had 10 months of holidays left, the system worked perfectly well.

"Can't you shorten it or something?" Sauron asked desperately, because he did not fancy that the paper hills on his desks transformed into mountains, what always happened when Grshznak was on holiday for two days.

"No can do." Grshznak answered happily, I bought a package holiday with a safari in Harad and a cruise and according to the terms and conditions, a cancellation is not possible.

"Damn it!" Sauron grumbled.

"But don't worry, I organised a replacement from a temp agency. She should be here in one hour." Grshznak tried to cheer up his boss.

With these words, the orc picked up his suitcase while grinning and left. Sauron was wondering why the grin took a bit of a malicious turn, but he did not have to ask himself that for long.

About one hour after Grshznak had left for his holiday, the door was suddenly opened forcefully. In the door frame, somebody stood who Sauron knew all too well.

"Mother!" Sauron exclaimed panicky, "what are you doing here?! You have never visited me before,"

"I am the holiday substitute. I was bored, therefore I registered with the temp agency and look where they are sending me to – to my dear son who hasn't even visited me in the last 150 years." Sauron thought that the last part was spoken with an unnecessary sharpness.

"And what kind of pigsty is this?" His mother continued, probably as a substitute for a proper greeting and entered the office.

Like lightning, Sauron threw himself over the stack of papers to his left which definitely was made up of non-work related material, principally of copies of 'Caught up in the throes of passion'.

"What are you up to now? Do you want to hide something from me?" Sauron's mother asked.

"But no, of course not!" Sauron stammered, before he, after a uncomfortable pause continued. "This is just a new position my chiropractor recommended. You know, because of my back."

"Well, well, we have back problems. And this in your age! I told you a thousand times that you shouldn't sit on your office chair the entire day! You need to have a bit of motion! No wonder that you with only 5489 years of age…"

From this point, Sauron stopped listening and wished he could have found thought of another excuse. Then again, to be scolded because of his insufficient physical activity was still better than the explosion that would have followed had she discovered his trashy romance novels. In contrast to Sauron, his mother despised 'Caught up in the throes of passion' because it was too tacky in her opinion. Quite daring for somebody who herself passionately read romance novels.

"… and you gained weight, as well!"

"Mother!" Sauron exclaimed outraged. I am the Lord of Darkness of Middle Earth and I don't have to listen to this!"

"So what? Ruler over all evil or not, you will do what I tell you to do. And you are not going home before you have cleared up this chaos on your desk. This sloppiness is disgusting!"

"But Mother…" One glance was enough to shut Sauron up. He knew that his mother was not interested in hearing that his desk had always been like this and that he even had overtaken it like this from Morgoth. Sighing he accepted his fate and filed the financial report of the last trimester in the appropriate folder.

)))°

A morose Sauron leafed through a file with the less helpful title 'Important, see event 43 X 12' to find out what it was about, which had been lying near the desktop in a pile of papers of which Sauron was sure even Morgoth had inherited from a predecessor. Sauron knew that his mother, who had made herself comfortable on the couch to supervise that Sauron did his job and didn't just stuff all the folders on the desk into the next cupboard, wouldn't be interested in the fact that this file had not been relevant for millennia.

With his other hand, Sauron held a bag of ice to his forehead to soothe the pain from the bump. He had acquired it when he had opened the cupboard he had never opened for a reason before. He knew exactly that he always used this cupboard to hide files in when Grshznak complained of messiness. But his mother did not accept any excuses and thus Sauron had been buried under a pile of files that had burst out of the piece of furniture when he had opened the door. Grshznak surely would have brought him the bag of ice, but he had to collect it himself from the kitchen (17 floors from Sauron's office and at the other end of the truly large office complex).

You could certainly say that Sauron was not a happy camper at the moment. It didn't get better knowing that Grshznak would still be away for some time. All in all, Sauron was reminded of why he had moved out the first chance he got.

While he was brooding he had at least found out what the file had been about. With a sigh he threw it on the ever growing pile 'for the archive'. (He knew he would have to carry down the files himself, as well.)

He reached for the next file on his desk, just to jump two feet into the air in surprise when he finally reached the desktop. Whoever had chosen the flower pattern on a sky blue background must have had a serious case of no taste for an evil overlord.

Now Sauron knew why he had received the desk with piles of paperwork which covered the entire desktop when he overtook it from Morgoth. But his mother wouldn't accept this justified argument for a desk covered with papers and preach something about a harmonic and ordered work environment leading to more productivity. But Sauron couldn't think of this flower pattern as harmonic at all. He just hoped there was money left for a new desk.

The next day, Sauron stared miserably at his desk which for the first time in history was completely clean. Supporters of a clutter free environment would have said that it finally adhered to standards of high productivity. Unfortunately, Sauron couldn't agree because the distasteful flower pattern on a sky blue ground was in full view.

In order to escape this view he even began to carry the files down to the archive, what indeed took a long time.

After he finished, at least the janitors' office that was responsible for furnishing offices had his only, slightly inconvenient office hours of the month (first Monday morning of the month, 6:30 am to 7 am).

"I need a new desk." A slightly irritated Sauron said to the Mordorian Times, behind which the orc on duty had not appeared after repeated clearings of the throat.

After some time had passed, the orc finally folded his newspaper and looked up exasperatedly. "We do not issue new furniture. The request forms for repairing items are on the table behind you."

"But it isn't damaged." Sauron answered, slightly more irritated.

"Then, there isn't a reason for you to be here." The Orc answered laconically and began to open his Mordorian Times again.

"But my desktop…" Sauron hyperventilated.

"Is it even?"

"Yes."

"Big enough?"

"Yes."

"Broken into pieces?"

"No."

"Then, tell me what is supposed to be wrong about it?" The orc asked exasperatedly because he wanted to continue reading his newspaper.

"It's sky blue! With a flower pattern!" Sauron said as if he was being tortured, while trying to express his horror with gestures.

"The orc raised an eyebrow."

"You can argue about taste, but it is not a valid reason to spend money." The orc finally said in a manner as if he thought the case was closed.

"I overtook the desk from my predecessor", Sauron moaned in despair. "It's not my fault!"

"That has been ages ago." The orc replied without compassion. "And it did not seem to have disturbed you before."

"The desktop had been covered by files." Sauron defended himself.

"But for Morgoth's sake, why are you cleaning it up." The orc asked in a manner that indicated that he was not a friend of cleaning up your workspace either.

"The holiday substitute of my secretary forced me to. The piles of files would not have been a harmonic environment." Sauron tried to defend his cleaning up operation.

"Why would the dark lord take orders from a temporary employee." The orc asked surprised.

"It's my mother." Sauron answered, still with a tortured undertone.

"Oh dear, I think we can make an exception in this case." The orc said who apparently had experience with mothers and their demands on a working environment.

With these words, he gave Sauron the application form for applying for a new piece of furniture.

"No loitering around the office." The ork barked when Sauron started to fill out the form. "You'll have to hand it in next month."

"But I'm the boss." Sauron tried to argue in a tone of voice which otherwise always worked. Unfortunately not with this orc.

Resignedly, Sauron trudged back to his office, containing the horrible desk, the 20-page long form under his arm. Maybe his mother would concede a layer of newspapers as acceptable cover for the horrible pattern.

After Sauron had deposited the files that had come by internal mail in his absence into the nearest cupboard to avoid possible questions why the work of the day had not been done yet, he began the task of applying for a new desk.  
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One month later, Sauron was back in the janitors' office after spending hours upon hours filling out the form. Some of the questions on it had more the character of the admission test to the elite university of Mordor (averagely 95 of 100 applicants failed it spectacularly every year, as Sauron knew from his own experience).

But Sauron hoped he had argued his case to replace the flowered monstrosity of a desk quite well.

"How long will it take until I'll get my new desk?" Sauron asked, while the orc critically examined what the dark lord had written under 15.6 (description oft he damage).

"Well, that is hard to say." The orc said while the stamped the form. "First it will go to the administration department of the building, then to the Ministry of Administrative Affairs, they will forward it to the section "furnishing", they will send it to the sub-section 'furniture', the to the sub-sub-section 'offices'. Conservatively, I would estimate 300 years."

Sauron's yaw fell down. „But that will take forever!"

"So what? And we are closing now." The orc answered without compassion.

Depressed, Sauron made his way back to his office but rather sat down at Grshznak's desk. That was better for his nerves. Luckily, his mother was not there and Grshznak should come back soon, as well.

Sauron hid behind a stack of reports containing budget proposals from the Ministry for the Development of Torture Methods, the Ministry of Torture and the Ministry for Mid-Level Civil Servants and read the newest copy of 'Caught up in the throes of passion'. After a while he noticed how the Minister for Logistic Affairs passed the office to reach his own which was two doors away.

Suddenly, Sauron got an idea. Now he knew how to get rid oft he desktop pretty quickly – just exchange it. He couldn't stand the Minister for Logistic Affairs anyway, because he shared Sauron's concept of what constituted showing up on time on Monday mornings. Because of this, he always took the last piece of cake from the snack booth in the entrance hall just before Sauron's eyes.

Sauron dared to enter his office with the horrible flower pattern and critically evaluated the dimensions of his desk. If he would pull it into the other office, he would certainly get the back damage he always pretended to have when somebody burst into his office and he had to hide a copy of 'Caught up in the throes of passion' quickly with his body.

Contemplating the issue he went home. The next morning he finally had a solution. It was only the desktop that needed to be exchanged and he should have a saw somewhere. As he knew that the other occupants of his hallway thought lunch was an acceptable time to come in to work in the morning. The next morning he came in early with a saw and a bucket of glue.

Due to his incompetence in craftsmanship matters, he had sawed in waves, but he thought, it would still work. Unfortunately, this theory did not work out fully, after he had cleared the desktop of the Minister for Logistic Affairs of files. At least Sauron avoided gluing his fingers to the desk when he lifted the desktop with the horrible flower pattern into place. Well, hopefully nobody would notice the end of the carpet now attached to the office chair.

Satisfied, Sauron carried his new, neutrally coloured desktop back to his office. Panting, he lifted it into place and stepped back to admire his work.

When he turned around, his desk gave an ominous sound and collapsed before Sauron's eyes. After he had recovered from the shock, he sighed and began to glue the single pieces of his desk back together. At least he had gotten rid of the horrible flower pattern.

"Did something happen?" Grshznak asked who looked relaxed when he saw Sauron who had carefully collapsed on top of his strongly swaying desk.

After Sauron had relayed the entire tragedy, Grshznak asked after a while. "But why didn't you just buy black paint to cover that horrible pattern?"


End file.
